Monthly Archives: February 2011

Program overview

A program tailored to the needs of young people looking to immerse themselves in Russian society, build professional skills, and improve their Russian. Whether you are a freshman just starting to learn Russian, a senior with Russian fluency, or someone simply eager to discover modern Russia, this program is for you.

QUICK FACTS:

Start dates: mid-June or mid-July

Duration: 4 or 8* weeks

OVERVIEW:

When you arrive in Moscow, someone from our organization will meet you and your fellow volunteers at the airport and will make sure that you get to your host city. Once in your host city, you and your fellow volunteers will have a two-day orientation to get you acquainted with your surroundings.

After that, for four (or eight) weeks, you will be responsible for teaching conversational English at a local language school. During this time, you will live with a host family, which will give you a place to sleep, food to eat, and a unique perspective on the world around you.

At the language school, depending on your skill level and preferences, you will either work with your own group of students, or will be made a teaching assistant. Your students may be kids or adults or both, and your schedule will include two to three hours of teaching per day with the weekends off.

To give you a chance to relax, meet new friends, and learn about your host society, every few days we will have organized excursions around the city and the region. In the past, we’ve gone to museums, to the river, and to neighboring cities, explored a local monastery, eaten traditional Russian food in a country home, among other activities.

You will also have some free time to explore your host city, take some time for yourself, or to spend it with your new Russian friends and fellow volunteers.

To learn more about the logistics of the program, visit the Essentials page.

In general, the intern will be supporting the work of the Jewish-Muslim Community Building Initiative, which involves bringing together Jews and Muslims for cultural events and social action. To that end, the intern’s work will be a combination of research and writing, event organizing and outreach, meeting with individuals and organizations in the Jewish and Muslim community, and doing social media and editing work.

Aside from a strong interest in interfaith collaboration and social justice issues, the intern will be expected to feel comfortable with challenges and excited about overcoming obstacles in order to attain goals. Many times the intern will be assigned the “what” and will be expected to think through the “how” independently (while, of course, guidance and support will be given). Creative thinking is encouraged, and optimism is a MUST.

Reflection from 2010 JMCBI Summer Intern:

“As an intern with JCUA, I’ve spent this summer working with the Jewish Muslim Community Building Initiative. I first became interested in JMCBI because of my academic work concerning the Middle East, but had had very little exposure to American Jewish Muslim relations. In all honesty, I assumed that whatever conflicts existed in American were entirely reliant on the situation in the Middle East. However, I was surprised to learn about the diversity of problems within our own city, and how much can be accomplished by focusing on building bridges between these two communities around social justice work together.

The focus of my work this summer was preparing for Iftar in the Synagogue (an annual interfaith celebration of Ramadan hosted in an Orthodox synagogue). This event was easily the highlight of my summer, from the relationships that I made on the planning committee to seeing over 250 Jews and Muslims come together simply to get to know one another. Through my involvement in this event and throughout my internship experience I was able to hone my event planning skills and learn from so many people, while having the opportunity to be exposed to and become active in all of JCUA’s primary campaigns.

Thanks for a great summer, JCUA!”

Katharine Nasielski,

JMCBI Summer Intern, 2010

Northwestern University, Class of 2011

Time Commitment:

Number of weeks: Candidates must be able to commit to a minimum of 10 weeks over the summer. Start and end dates are negotiable.

Number of hours per week: While we give preference to candidates who can commit to a full-time internship (40 hours a week), we will consider all candidates who can commit to a minimum of 20 hours per week.

Cover letter should address (but should not be limited to) the following questions:

* What interests you about JCUA’s mission and activities? How can you contribute to this work?

* What excites you about JMCBI?

* What experiences and qualities would you bring that would help you succeed in this fellowship?

In your resume, please include 1-2 references that could be contacted with regards to your application. Your references should be able to shed light on experience or qualities that are relevant to the fellowship.

Applicants with strong Muslim or Jewish backgrounds are especially encouraged to apply

The Center for Gender Studies (CGS) is pleased to announce the dissertation-writing fellowship competition for the school term 2011-2012. For this year, there will be two fellowships awarded, and the fellows will participate in the Center’s Sawyer Seminar, funded by a grant from the Mellon Foundation.

Sawyer Seminar:

The seminar, titled “International Women’s Human Rights: Paradigms, Paradoxes, and Possibilities,” is designed to address contradictions within the concept and practice of women’s human rights and will involve, among other things, a comparative approach to women’s human rights which analyzes the differences and similarities between the European and the Indian rights traditions.

Eligibility Requirements:

• University of Chicago Ph.D. candidates from all disciplines are encouraged to apply

• Applicants with dissertations addressing themes of the Sawyer Seminar are encouraged

• Applicants must have been admitted to candidacy by the deadline, April 1, 2011

Award Terms and Conditions:

• The fellowship provides a stipend of $18,000 plus tuition, student fees, health insurance under the Basic Plan for the 2011-2012 academic year

• Fellows are provided with shared office space at the Center for Gender Studies

• Recipients of the fellowship are expected to participate in and present at the Gender and Sexuality Studies Workshop and to attend CGS events, participate in the Sawyer Seminar and related events as well as participate in the intellectual life of the center as a whole

Application Process: The application should include a completed Applicant Data Sheet (Word doc | PDF file ), the student’s current CV, a statement of purpose (cover letter describing your work in relation to your general intellectual preparation, commitments, etc.), a prospectus (description of the dissertation), one chapter, and two letters of recommendation.

The deadline for submission is Friday, April 1, 2011, 12:00 PM. Early applications are welcome!

The Lesbian and Gay Studies Project (LGSP) is pleased to announce the competition for the James C. Hormel Fellowship in Sexuality Studies for the 2011-2012 academic year. The Hormel Fellowships are made possible by the generous support of James C. Hormel, the former Ambassador to Luxembourg and an alumnus and former Dean of the University of Chicago Law School.

Eligibility Requirements:

• The fellowship competition is open to University of Chicago Ph.D. students who are writing dissertations in sexuality studies

• Students in all disciplines are encouraged to apply

• Applicants must be admitted to candidacy by June 15, 2011

Terms and Conditions:

• The fellowship provides a stipend of $18,000 plus tuition, student fees, health insurance under the Basic Plan for the 2011-2012 academic year

• Hormel Fellows are also provided with shared office space at the Center for Gender Studies.

• Recipients of the fellowship are expected to participate in and present at the Gender and Sexuality Studies Workshop. They are also obliged to attend LGSP and CGS events as well as participate in the intellectual life of the center as a whole.

Application Requirements:

1. A summary sheet stating the applicant’s name, address, phone, and e-mail; department; year entering department; proposed dissertation or thesis title; and name of faculty recommenders (and their departments), in that order;

2. A 2-page (single-spaced) summary of the research project, which explains its relationship to the field of sexuality studies if it is not self-evident;

Trans-Atlantic Summer Institute (TASI)

Violence Across the Mediterranean to Northern Europe: Theory and Practice

Trans-Atlantic Summer Institute in European Studies—Graduate Student Fellowship Program
July 17 – July 29, 2011, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, USA

Presented by the Center for German & European Studies at the University of Minnesota, which is funded by the University of Minnesota and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). Additional funding for the 2011 Institute is provided by Germany’s Foreign Office (StADaF–Ständiger Ausschuss Deutsch als Fremdsprache grant); German American Heritage Foundation, St. Paul; University of Minnesota, European Studies Consortium. We thank all sponsors for their generous support.

Working Schedule & Documents

Program content is available for registered participants in the Summer Institute. If you are a registered participant and need to access this page, please e-mail Anna Burger.

Overview

Since 2001 the Trans-Atlantic Summer Institutes (TASI) provide a unique forum for advanced graduate students from North America, Germany, and other European countries to explore together topics relating to Germany’s and Europe’s history, politics, and society. Each summer, twelve European and twelve North American graduate students work intensively for two to three weeks and explore in depth questions that will enrich their dissertations in German and European Studies. The Summer Institutes are co-taught by a multi-disciplinary team of faculty and aim to make a major contribution to the training of the next generation of experts on Germany and Europe. They introduce European students to the American university; North American students will acquire a similar familiarity with the European setting. They foster the international discussions and collaborations that are fundamental to the scholarly enterprise. As a student in the Summer Institute, you will learn how to combine the best aspects of training in both settings—the close attention to archival sources and their interpretation in Europe with the broad trans-disciplinary readings that characterize North American scholarship.

TASI is a non-credit seminar for advanced graduate-level students in all fields; the 2011 Institute will convene on the campus of the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis (USA).

Topic

The intrinsic nature of violence to human behavior has produced an extensive interdisciplinary literature on the subject. Scholarly literature has tended to focus on four main strands: institutional violence (war, torture, dictatorial practices, police brutality, genocide); gender, racial or social violence (homophobic aggression, domestic violence, misogynist killings, racial lynching, urban riots, rural vandalism, immigration stigma, religious sanctions), textual violence (exclusionary discourses, hate speech, violence in literature) and social trauma studies (memory syndromes of war, genocide, slavery, dictatorship, colonization, decolonization, exile, etc.). By creating these theoretical frameworks, do scholarly theories of violence obscure or illuminate our understanding of its practices? Is it possible to weave these strands together across time and space and put the scholarly debates in conversation with each other in order to come to an understanding of the relationship between the personal and the social, the individual and the state, when it comes to the way violence is conceived and perpetrated?

By using the geographical parameters of the Mediterranean and Europe, the South and the North, and the violence engendered by the relationship of one area to the other, TASI 2011 provides a scholarly forum where questions such as these and violence in all its forms and practices can be discussed and analyzed. The Institute offers fellows a diverse mix of seminar discussions of key readings, research presentations by guest faculty and fellows, and informal discussions of fellows’ research projects. The international faculty team solicits applications from young scholars in the social sciences and humanities who are eager to situate their own projects at the intersection of these strands.

Faculty

Patricia Lorcin is associate professor of History at the University of Minnesota. Her areas of special expertise are cultural and social hegemony in colonial and post-colonial settings, Modern France, and issues of race and racial ideology. She is the author of Imperial Identities(London/New York, I.B. Tauris/St. Martins Press, 1995). Her edited and co-edited volumes include Algeria and France 1800-2000: Identity, Memory and Nostalgia (Syracuse University Press, 2006); Migrances, Diasporas et Transculturalités Francophones. Littératures et cultures d’Afrique, des Caraïbes, d’Europe et du Québec, with Hafid Gafaiti & David Troyansky (Paris, L’Harmattan, 2005); and Transnational Cultures and Identities in the Francophone World, with Hafid Gafaiti and David Troyansky, 2 vols. (Nebraska University Press, 2009); France and its Space of War (Palgrave, 2009). She is the editor of French Historical Studies.

TASI guest lecturer: Ruth Mandel is professor of Anthropology at University College London. Her books include Cosmopolitan Anxieties: Turkish Challenges to Citizenship and Belonging in Germany (Duke University Press, 2008).

Fellowship Information & Application Materials

The Institute is intended for advanced graduate students working toward a Ph.D. or other terminal degree at a North American or European university. Preference will be given to students who have already defined a dissertation topic. The language of instruction is English. Competency in English and a reading knowledge of French are required. Logistics: arrive in Minneapolis on Sunday, July 17 for the TASI opening dinner; class starts on Monday, July 18; class ends on Friday, July 29 at 1 p.m.; depart from Minneapolis on Friday, July 29 after 2:30 p.m.

Pending final budget approval, all fellows will receive a fellowship to cover most expenses:

Institute tuition

Housing and meals for the duration of the Institute

Access to library and archival materials and Internet resources

Fellowships will also include up to $350 in support of round-trip airfare to Minneapolis.

Complete applications for admission to the Institute must be received by April 8, 2011. Applications may be submitted electronically to cges@umn.edu. If you choose this option, please put “2011 TASI Application” in subject line. Decisions will be made by April 25, 2011.

A complete application consists of 1) a letter of interest, 2) a two-page dissertation abstract, or a two-page statement about the relevance of this topic to the applicant’s research, 3) a curriculum vitae, 4) an official graduate transcript, and 5) one letter of recommendation. The letter of interest should include information on the applicant’s scholarly background, interests, and career goals. The statement should address how the Institute topic fits into the applicant’s program of study, and what the applicant hopes to gain through participation in the Institute. Please send applications to:

Professors Patricia Lorcin and Aberrahmane Moussaoui
Center for German & European Studies
University of Minnesota
214 Social Science Building
267— 19th Avenue South
Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455
USA

Call for Papers: Weissbourd Conference
May 6-7, 2011 – The University of Chicago

Keynote Address by John Searle
Response by Robert Pippin

The Society of Fellows seeks paper proposals for the Weissbourd 2011 Conference, which will take place on May 6-7. Generously sponsored by the Bernard Weissbourd Memorial Fund, this annual event brings together scholars from across the humanities and social sciences to present their work in the context of a shared critical problem, debate, or paradigm.

John R. Searle, Slusser Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley, will deliver the keynote address on this year’s theme of “Contradiction.” Robert Pippin, Evelyn Stefansson Nef Distinguished Service Professor of Social Thought and Philosophy at the University of Chicago, will offer a response. Along with these talks, the conference will comprise a series of panels chaired by faculty, fellows, and visiting scholars. We are now inviting you and members of your department to be a part of this event.

A few words on this year’s topic:

“Contradiction”–an inevitable term in virtually all areas of critical analysis–describes a fraught relationship between established categories of thought. Variously signaling a logical impossibility or impasse, an opposing claim or negation, or literally, an act of “speaking against” or speaking otherwise, the notion of contradiction opens up a path toward interdisciplinary examination of the foundations ofcritical inquiry itself. How does contradiction shape the central problems we address in fields as distinct as history, philosophy, literary and cultural criticism, poetics, politics, psychology, theology, and law? What is the relationship between such apparently static oppositions as nature/artifice or sacred/profane and dynamic understandings of contradiction such as dialectics? What forms of coherence and consistency are required for critiques of scientific theories, of artworks and aesthetic practices, of speech acts and texts, or of social and political ideologies? How do we live with contradiction, in theory and in practice? And can we live without it?

All who are interested in participating in this conference are encouraged to submit brief abstracts of papers (no more than a paragraph, please) by March 15, 2011. Paper abstracts may be submitted either for general consideration or for inclusion in one of the following proposed panels:

1. Marx, Hegel, and Modern Philosophy
Chair: Spencer Leonard, Collegiate Assistant Professor in the Social Sciences (History)
Panel Description: This panel addresses the question of Marxism’s relationship to philosophy both in terms of Marx and Engels’ own writings, in the tradition of “high Marxism” of the late 19th and early 20th century, and in the deliberate attempt to recover the question theoretically in the writings of Karl Korsch and Georg Lukács in the early 1920s.
Please email abstracts for this panel to: saleonar@uchicago.edu

2. Tales of Suffering and Revolution: Victimhood and Agency in Collective Memory
Chair: Berthold Molden, Mellon Fellow and Visiting Scholar in the Social Sciences (History)
Panel Description: The French-Italian historian Enzo Traverso recently diagnosed the increasing power that narratives of victimhood have in social remembrance: “The memory of the Gulag erased that of the revolutions, the memory of the Holocaust replaced that of antifascism and the memory of slavery eclipsed that of anticolonialism: the remembrance of the victims seems unable to coexist with the recollection of their struggles, of their conquest and their defeats.” Within postcolonial critique, on the other hand, history itself is often envisioned as a specter haunting the postcolonial subject into self‐victimization. It is the aim of this interdisciplinary panel to discuss narratives of victimhood and political agency and scrutinize their alleged bipolarity. Normative reductions towards either victimizing or purely emancipatory historical rhetoric should be questioned and the dialectics between both highlighted. We encourage papers on specific politics of history and memory as well as on theoretical aspects of this topic.
Please email abstracts for this panel to: bmolden@uchicago.edu

3. Poetry and Contradiction
Organizer: Richard Strier, Frank L. Sulzberger Distinguished Service Professor in English (Chair: TBA)
Panel Description: This panel will consider whether poetry can live happily with contradiction, and what types of contradiction poetic form and poetic praxis can or cannot sustain.
Please email abstracts for this panel to: weissbourdconference@gmail.com
4. Philosophical Contradictions
Chair: Nathan Bauer, Collegiate Assistant Professor in the Humanities (Philosophy)
Panel Description: This panel examines how philosophical inquiry (analytical and social/political) engages with contradiction, whether in moral psychology, in transcendental arguments, in the use of proofs, and in theories of practical irrationality, among other contexts.
Please email abstracts for this panel to: njbauer@uchicago.edu

5. Theories of Mass Culture: A Panel in Honor of Miriam Hansen
Chair: TBA
Panel Description: This panel will honor the intellectual legacy of Miriam Hansen (1949-2011), Ferdinand Schevill Distinguished Service Professor in the Humanities and Professor of English and of Cinema & Media Studies at the University of Chicago. Papers directly addressing and drawing on the influence of Hansen’s work are particularly encouraged. Submissions are also invited on the topics of the Frankfurt School, media theory, film criticism and the history of cinema and of visuality, and theories of mass culture.
Please email abstracts for this panel to: weissbourdconference@gmail.com

6. Postsocialism and the Contradictions of Neoliberalism
Chair: Eszter Bartha, Assistant Professor of Eastern European History at the Eötvös Loránd Universityin Budapest and Endeavor Visiting Scholar at the University of Chicago
Panel Description: This panel seeks to explore how we can interpret shifting working-class political identities post-1989 through the lens of “contradictions of neoliberalism,” and in what ways contradiction itself can offer a methodological tool for the understanding of postsocialist change and the challenges that newly established democracies are facing after twenty years of “transition.”
Please email abstracts for this panel to: barthaeszter@hotmail.com

7. Social Conflict
Chair: Stefan Kluseman, Collegiate Assistant Professor in the Social Sciences (Sociology)
Panel Description: Social conflict is a pervasive feature of social life and as such has been an integral element and theme in literature, social science research, and the news. Meanwhile, the news media but also literary work and social science research have played integral roles for conflict. Social conflict involves contradictions on various dimensions, including both, obvious forms such as political power struggles, economic (class) conflict, or war as well as more latent forms of conflict. This panel calls for papers studying conflict in its many forms in social science research and literary works as well as the role of the media and literature in conflict. Presentations on a range of topics are welcome, e.g. on political conflict; social and political movements; revolutions; terrorism and counterterrorism; imperialism and movements of national independence; economic (class) inequalities and conflict; ethnic, racial, and religious conflicts; violence; scientific debates; gender conflicts; generational conflicts; public scandals, etc.
Please email abstracts for this panel to: klusemann@uchicago.edu

We invite scholars in all fields to submit abstracts to individual panel chairs and/or to the Weissbourd Conference organizers, who may assemble additional panels in other areas where a substantial shared interest emerges. Please feel free to contact us with any questions at the following email address: weissbourdconference@gmail.com

Over two decades have passed since the democratic transition and the self-liberation of Eastern Europe. Since then democratic institutions and values have stabilized, central command economies have been dismantled, the former members of the Comecon and of the Warsaw Pact are now fully integrated into NATO and the European Union. There are no longer hindrances on artistic and cultural self-expression, borders were opened for goods and ideas, for human traffic. However, success was accompanied by great social dislocation, political and economic difficulties, crisis of values, the rise of political extremism. This conference is meant to take a snapshot where Hungary and the broader region stands after twenty years of democracy. Has the age old dream of catching up with the West politically, socially and economically succeeded? How were these last twenty years reflected in the arts and culture? What was the human experience of the transition? How did societies change? What was the experience of minorities? These are some of the issues we shall be dealing with along with the question: what are the prospects of Hungary and Eastern Europe?

SATURDAY, April 2, 2011

Morning Panel I: The International and Historical Context

National Self-Determination versus Stability and Security: Eastern Europe in the PowerArena, 1918-1990

László Borhi, Indiana University

Mission Accomplished? The Questions of Hungary`s Integration into the Euro-

Atlantic Community

TamásMagyarics, Hungarian Institute of Foreign Affairs

Panel II: Economic Challenge

Eastern Europe in the World Economy: Past and Prospects

Iván T. Berend, University of California, Los Angeles

The First Will Be the Last? Two Decades of Transition in Hungary

LászlóCsaba, Central European University

Income Distribution and Social Policy in the Former Soviet Bloc

Mark Kramer,Harvard University

Afternoon Panel III: The Legacy of History

Farewell to Postcommunism

Padraic Kenney, Indiana University

The Past is Not Another Country: Romania Confronts Its Communist Past

VladimirTismaneanu, University of Maryland

Political Uses of the Finno-Ugric Idea in Hungary and Estonia

Matthew Caples, Indiana University

SUNDAY, April 3, 2011

Panel IV:The Post-Communist Experience in Comparative Perspective

The Challenges of Renewed Independence: The Baltic States since 1991

Toivo Raun, Indiana University

The Political Ambiguities of Solidarity: Value Contestations in Post-1989 Poland

Jack Bielasiak, Indiana University

The Decline of Soviet Space and the Return of History: The Perspective From Asia

Chris Atwood, Indiana University

Panel V:Culture and Society

Aesthetics of Middle-Class Family House Building and Social Change in Hungary

KrisztinaFehervary,University of Michigan

Literature of Transition: Hungarian Literature since 1989

Thomas Cooper, University of Eger

Dancing on the Edge of a Volcano: East European Roma Performers Responding to

Social Transformation

Lynn Hooker, Indiana University

The symposium is free and open to the public. The courtesy of advance registration is requested (for seat/lunch counts) but not required. Contact: Indiana University Department of Central Eurasian Studies, Goodbody Hall 157, 1011 East Third Street, Bloomington, IN 47405-7005; phone 812-855-2233; fax 812-855-7500; e-mail kniggle@indiana.eduusing subject line HUNGARIAN. Abstracts, bios and the final program will be posted at www.indiana.edu/~ceus.

Free parking is available on weekends in the Indiana University Fee Lane Parking Garage. The Kelley School of Business Graduate and Executive Education Center is connected to that parking garage at the northwest corner of 10th Street and Fee Lane.For a campus map, see www.iub.edu/~iubmap.

If you have a disability and need assistance, special arrangements can be made to accommodate most needs. Contact Karen Niggle at kniggle@indiana.edu.

The accident at the nuclear power plant in Chornobyl, Ukraine took place on April 26th, 1986, and is considered to be the gravest environmental disaster in the history of humankind. The Kyiv Committee of Chicago Sister Cities will commemorate this tragedy in a program which highlights response and recovery efforts, and gives witness to those devastated by the loss of life, health, and home.

The formal speaking program will begin at 5:30 p.m.with the event concluding with a moment of silence and screening of the documentary film, “Block Four”.

Sponsored by:
Kyiv Committee of Chicago Sister Cities International
Ukrainian Medical Association of North America
Center for Global Health, UIC College of Medicine
Ukrainian Congress Committee of America
Chicago Business and Professional Group

We are writing to provide additional information about the Russian Immersion Program offered during the 2011 summer session at California State University, Northridge. Students who take advantage of this program will gain cross-cultural experience that will give them a competitive edge in today’s growing international business community.

Due to the program’s ongoing success, it has been expanded to include college students from around the country. SLI is accepting applications from students of all levels (beginning, intermediate, and advanced Russian).

The program is comprised of three phases: a six-week immersion residential program at CSUN during the 2011 summer session; continued study of Russian at the students’ respective institutions during the 2011-2012 academic year as well as weekly communication with the SLI instructors at CSUN; and a six-week study abroad opportunity where students will study Russian at the prestigious Russian State University for the Humanities in Moscow during the summer session of 2012.

Students who are accepted into the 2011 six-week residential immersion program are eligible for scholarships that will cover a portion of the following costs: instruction, textbooks, room and board, and field trips. Upon completion of the program, students will receive 6 to 9 transferrable semester credits for each of the summer sessions.

I attached additional information about the Russian Strategic Language Initiative Program and would appreciate it if you would distribute this information to students who may be interested in applying. The attached brochure includes our phone number and email address so that students may contact us directly. Additional information about the Russian SLI Program and the program application can be accessed at: http://www.csun.edu/SLI.Russian/.

The deadline to apply is March 11, 2011.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact Kathy Torabi, Graduate Assistant, at 818-677-3593 or 818-807-7084 or katayoun.torabi.830@my.csun.edu. Thank you in advance for your attention to this matter.